The transport systems as known from the prior art usually have lateral guide elements, such as railings or the like, the spacing or orientation of which have to be adjusted in dependence on the geometry of the articles to be transported. Such an adjustment was normally performed manually and with the aid of tools, as the case may be.
Since such a manual adjustment is time-consuming and since production or the transport have to be stopped during the adjustment, other devices are known from the prior art that allow adjusting the spacing of railings in a transport system with the aid of a motor.
Such an apparatus is for instance known from WO 03/099687 A1. In the transport system shown in the WO patent application, first guide rails are coupled to a motor. Arranged in a downstream section, there are additional guide rails, which are adjustable synchronously and equidistantly by means of a manual crank. For both the first guide rails and the following guide rails, respectively, it is necessary to operate a motor or a manual crank, in order to adjust the entire transport route to new container sizes.